Following is a summary of key federal disaster aid programs that can be made available as needed and warranted under President Obama's disaster declaration issued for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Assistance for the Commonwealth and Affected Local Governments Can Include as Required:

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WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Federal Emergency Management Agency announced that federal disaster aid has been made available to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to supplement commonwealth and local recovery efforts in the area affected by a severe winter storm, snowstorm, and flooding during the period of February 8 - 9, 2013.

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Following is a summary of key federal disaster aid programs that can be made available as needed and warranted under President Obama’s emergency declaration issued for Texas.

Assistance for the State and Affected Local Governments Can Include as Required:

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WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) announced that federal disaster assistance has been made available to Texas to supplement state and local response efforts due to the emergency conditions resulting from explosions beginning on April 17, 2013, and continuing.

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NEW YORK — Disaster assistance to New York survivors of Hurricane Sandy:

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WILMINGTON (April 19, 2013) – Two male North American River Otters have taken up residence at the Brandywine Zoo and visitors can not only meet them starting Saturday, April 20, but zoo-goers also have an opportunity to help choose names for the otters by voting at the zoo throughout the spring.

DOVER (April 19, 2013) – Delaware is home to eight species of bats, several of which have begun their annual move from winter hibernation sites to summer maternity colonies. Female bats return pregnant to the colonies where they congregate to give birth and raise their pups. In Delaware, these colonies can often take up residence in barns, garages, attics and homes.

DOVER (April 19, 2013) – The Source Water Protection Citizens and Technical Advisory Committee (CTAC) of the Source Water Assessment and Protection Program will hold its semiannual meeting from 9 a.m. to noon Wednesday, May 1 in Conference Room 220 A&B of the Kent County Administrative Offices on Bay Road in Dover. This meeting is the second of two focused on nutrients in drinking water.

DOVER (April 19, 2013) – With spring mowing season underway and having fielded recent calls from people who have found what they believe are “abandoned” baby rabbits, DNREC’s Division of Fish and Wildlife would like to remind well-meaning wildlife watchers not to “rescue” young wild animals. Young Eastern cottontail rabbits, in particular, may appear to be alone, since their mothers often temporarily leave their ground nests to avoid attracting predators, returning only to feed their young.

CHICAGO – As severe storms and flooding continue to impact several states throughout the Midwest, the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) Region V office continues to monitor the situation and urges all residents to remain vigilant, and take extra caution as severe weather threatens.

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LEWES (April 18, 2013) – A coastal grass planting effort capitalizing on Department of Correction’s VOP (violation of probation) laborers and privately-donated resources will help DNREC’s Division of Watershed Stewardship bolster the north side of the Indian River Inlet against lost or displaced sand from future weather events.

SMYRNA, Del. -- More than $2.2 million in federal funding has been awarded thus far for Hurricane Sandy recovery, the Delaware Emergency Management Agency (DEMA) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) announced today.

As DEMA and FEMA continue to partner in Hurricane Sandy recovery, additional funding will be forthcoming following state and federal review and approval.

Recent obligations include projects totaling more than $964,642 in Public Assistance funding, bringing the total amount of FEMA dollars awarded thus far to $2,231,450.  

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Following is a summary of key federal disaster aid programs that can be made available as needed and warranted under President Obama’s emergency declaration issued for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Assistance for the Commonwealth, Tribal and Affected Local Governments Can Include as Required:

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WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) announced that federal disaster assistance has been made available to Massachusetts to supplement commonwealth and local response efforts due to the emergency conditions resulting from explosions during the period of April 15-22, 2013.

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DOVER (April 16, 2013) – DNREC’s Wetland Monitoring and Assessment Program announced this week that they have completed the final report on the health of wetlands located in central Sussex County’s Broadkill River Watershed.

The USGS makes finding the locations (and more) of U.S. species a lot easier with the new digital resource - BISON

Biodiversity Information Serving Our Nation or BISON is the only system of its kind; a unique, web-based Federal resource for finding species in the U. S. and territories.  Its size is unprecedented, offering more than 100 million mapped records of nearly every living species nationwide and growing. And the vast majority of the records are specific locations, not just county or state records.

What’s more, BISON provides an "Area of Interest" search capability in which users can query by drawing the exact boundary around their area of interest, down to and including towns, villages, or even much smaller areas such as parks. For instance, New York City's Central Park has more than 100,000 "species occurrences" recorded in BISON, with each species noted in detail. Other BISON search options include querying the species by scientific or common name, year range, state, county, basis of record, or provider institution.  

As for the results, BISON displays them in both an interactive map and a list format. Users can click on each species occurrence point to retrieve more information, such as the institution providing the data, the collector, the date collected, and whether it was from a collection or an observation.  Further, occurrences can be dynamically visualized with more than 50 other layers of environmental information in the system. Extensive web services are also available for direct connections to other systems.

"The USGS is proud to announce this monumental resource", said Kevin Gallagher, Associate Director, Core Science Systems," and this is a testament to the power of combining the efforts of  hundreds of thousands of professional and citizen scientists into a resource that uses Big Data and Open Data principles to deliver biodiversity information for sustaining the Nation's environmental capital".

"BISON is destined to become an indispensable toolkit to manage species occurrence data to support scientific, educational, and policy-making activities in the US", Dr. Erick Mata, Executive Director of the Encyclopedia of Life explained.  "This is highly complementary and synergistic with EOL's efforts to raise awareness and understanding of living nature."

"With BISON, the USGS takes a big step toward making biodiversity data held within Federal agencies easier to find and use", added Mary Klein, President & CEO of NatureServe. "I am enthusiastic about future opportunities to work with USGS to increase collaboration among Federal, state and private data holders."

USGS Core Science Systems Mission Area, which developed the resource, expects that BISON users will be broad-based and include land managers, researchers, refuge managers, citizen scientists, agriculture professionals, fisheries managers, water resource managers, educators, and more.

Land managers, for instance, might be looking for a piece of land to purchase for conservation—but first they want to know what species have been documented for that parcel. BISON will tell them after only a few mouse clicks.

BISON serves as the U.S. Node of the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) and will form an integral part of EcoINFORMA, the information delivery strategy in "Sustaining Environmental Capital: Protecting Society and the Economy," a recent report by the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST).

"BISON responds directly to a key need PCAST pointed out in 'Sustaining Environmental Capital' - to make Federal environmental data available, inter-operable, and usable to the public," said PCAST member Rosina Bierbaum, "We look forward to this 'biodiversity' hub being supplemented by complementary ecological data hubs by other Federal partners, to further the goal of helping communities across the Nation make increasingly wise planning and management decisions."

BISON already includes millions of points from the Federal investment in biodiversity research. It is formally cooperating with other Federal agencies to greatly expand the delivery of federally funded biodiversity data for the greatest possible good. Hundreds of thousands of citizen and professional scientists have collected the data in BISON. Non-governmental organizations, state and local governments, universities, and many others are also participating in this enormous undertaking.

The USGS has built and maintains BISON, which is hosted on the massive Federal computing infrastructure at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

To learn more, visit: http://bison.usgs.ornl.gov or contact the USGS BISON Team at BISON@usgs.gov.

The USGS Core Science Analytics and Synthesis program within Core Science Systems is home to BISON and focuses on innovative ways to manage and deliver scientific data and information. The program implements and promotes standards and best practices to enable efficient, data-driven science for decision-making that supports a rapid response to emerging natural resource issues. One of the ways this is accomplished is by developing national data products that increase our understanding of the Earth’s natural systems.

MILFORD (April 17, 2013) – Delaware Governor Jack Markell today joined with PSEG Solar Source, Delaware Municipal Electric Corporation (DEMEC), juwi solar, Inc. (JSI) and Sunolar Power (Sunolar) to dedicate the PSEG Milford Solar Farm. The 15-megawatt facility, located in Milford, Del., is the state’s largest solar farm.

DOVER (April 17, 2013) – The Delaware Agricultural Museum and Village was the setting for today’s Stewardship Week proclamation reading and presentation of the annual Governor’s Agricultural and Urban Conservation Awards. On behalf of Governor Jack Markell and DNREC Secretary Collin O’Mara, DNREC Deputy Secretary David Small led a ceremony with Delaware Association of Conservation Districts President Wendy O. Baker recognizing the honorees.

TRENTON, N.J. -- Disaster assistance to New Jersey survivors of Hurricane Sandy by the numbers as of April 15:

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TRENTON, N.J. -- Hurricane Sandy survivors who had storm-related damages in New Jersey have just two weeks left to register with the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Residents must register for disaster assistance by midnight (EDT), May 1.

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